A pull rope for starting an engine is well known in the art and an engine that has a pull-rope may power a variety of manually operated tools, such as a chain saw, an air blower/vac or a lawn mower. The pull rope is attached at one end to a pulley that is in turn attached to a shaft of the engine. Often, a shroud or cover encloses the pulley and the pull rope extends out through the shroud.
One conventional structural arrangement is that a section of the pull rope that is between the pulley and the shroud lies within a plane of the starter pulley. Specifically, the rope section lies in the plane or at most nominally offset from the plane. Such an arrangement of the starter pull rope is acceptable so long as no inner structure of the tool is positioned to interfere with the rope.
In a conventional full crank engine as shown in FIG. 1, the shaft extends on both sides of the engine. Thus, the shaft is long enough to accommodate a flywheel on one side of the engine and a starter pulley on the other side engine. In a powered air blower/vac tool using a half-crank engine, the shaft does not offer as much space as a full-crank engine on which to install the starter pulley.
FIG. 1 shows a prior art device in the form of a full crank engine 100 with a pull-rope starter assembly arranged in a conventional manner. From the view shown in FIG. 1, a flywheel 125 that includes a magnet is located to the left side of an engine casing 101 on a shaft 115 and the rope-starter assembly is located on the right side. The rope-starter assembly includes a handle 145 that is fastened to one end of a starter pull rope 140. The pull rope 140 is within a center plane of a starter pulley 120 or nominally offset from the plane. Because the shaft 115 of the full crank engine 100 passes completely through the engine casing 101 and is located on both sides of the engine casing 101, the rope-starter assembly, with the starter pulley 120 and the pull rope 120, can also be installed to avoid interference with other components.